I’m not sure there has ever been a time in my life when almost every day begins with a thought along the lines of, “What the hell did Trump and his minions do now? Who have they killed? What country have they invaded? What alliance have they shattered? What freedoms have they ripped away from the American people? What laws have they broken? What incompetent people have they put in powerful positions? Which of Trump’s perceived enemies or critics has his supplicant Department of Justice launched an attack upon? How much money has the Trump family grifted and from whom?” This is not a once in a while occurrence, it’s a daily nightmare and stressor.
All the above provide a never-ending stream of things to write about but the mere fact that so many Americans are preoccupied with the same questions brought to mind a book that I recently read. The book, “Madhouse at the End of the Earth” by Julian Sancton, is true-life account of the voyage of the steamship, Belgica, captained by a young Belgian, Adrien de Gerlache. The Belgica set out from Belgium with a small crew of men – Belgian, Norwegian, American, Polish – with the intent to explore Antarctica and push further south than anyone had up to that date in 1897.
The ship ultimately became trapped in the Antarctic ice and had to winter over in an extremely hostile environment for which the captain and the crew were not fully prepared. It is an extraordinary tale of the ability of people to survive in extremely hostile environments. The crew and the captain not only were subjected to the challenges of physically surviving the harsh environment but were also subjected to tremendous mental stress as well. The Antarctic winter is dark. The ship was relatively small, so the crew were confined to a very restricted space much of the time. And there was the constant fear that the ship would be crushed by the ice which would have doomed the men to certain death. In fact, the survival story is studied by NASA even today for its lessons on the limits of what humans can endure.
Ultimately the ship was freed the following summer through both luck and superhuman effort on behalf of the crew. All but two of the crew survived but many had lasting Issues which today we would probably categorize as PTSD after being subjected to such constant stress and trauma.
So, why is this relevant to today? Given what I stated at the beginning about so many of us start the day wondering what the hell is going to happen next, it sometimes feels as if we are trapped in “Trump or MAGA ice” on the USS America wondering how ‘we the people’ will survive and if the ship can withstand the political and, quite frankly, fascist pressures constantly inflicted upon it by the Trump administration.
There is some solace in the fact that even though the crew of the Belgica were subjected to almost unfathomable physical and mental stresses and were ultimately able to free themselves from an almost impossibly hopeless situation, perhaps ‘we the people’ can rise to the occasion and free ourselves from the tyranny that now threatens us and the country we call home. I hope that will be true. But like the crew of the Belgica, I think the damage on the psyche of the American people from this ordeal will last well after we are able to free ourselves from the Trump ice that now holds us captive.
